The Cringe-Factor Is High With Spotify’s Wrapped AI Podcast

It’s the infinitesimal everyone’s been waiting for each year: Spotify Wrapped time. Though it launched aboriginal than initially anticipated, the yearly personalized wrap-up is disposable for subscribers to spot wherever their euphony tastes landed for the year. What’s besides disposable is simply a customized podcast courtesy of Google’s NotebookLM, featuring 2 AI hosts who conflict to pronounce immoderate opus oregon creator that is not of the Anglo-Saxon variety.

Artificial quality isn’t perfect. Even with the astir convincing demonstrations astatine developer conferences, AI text-to-speech ever sounds somewhat forced compared to however humans talk. The champion illustration is Spotify’s Wrapped AI podcast, which resembles Google’s objection earlier this twelvemonth astatine Google I/O. The hosts are surely convincing, but the longer you perceive to the synthetically concocted podcast, the much evident it becomes that you’re listening to a brace of robots recapping your listening stats.

The AI-produced podcast starts standard. It sounds similar maine and my podcasting spouse connected an occurrence of our show. First, the hosts item the longest time you listened to Spotify during the year. It picked up connected a peculiarly affectional time erstwhile I was listening to hours of bittersweet music. The AI hosts safely wondered aloud if it was due to the fact that I was connected a roadworthy travel that day. (I wasn’t. I was crying!) This is an accidental wherever the AI could person scaled backmost connected making assumptions. Like a person who isn’t reasoning astir the interaction of their words, the AI triggered maine to harken backmost to a time of important discomfort. Rude behavior!

Then, the AI hosts work disconnected your most-played artists and songs of the year. I would inactive similar to perceive an actual, unrecorded quality effort to pronounce the sanction of my favourite Dutch artist, Joost Klein, than Google’s NotebookLM. His sanction is pronounced “Yost,” but the podcast alternatively refers to him arsenic “juiced.” It’s adjacent worse erstwhile they effort to pronounce the Dutch songs. My astir played opus this twelvemonth is called “Wachtmuziek,” and Google’s NotebookLM hosts pronounce it precisely arsenic you mightiness effort to work it arsenic a non-Dutch speaker, without the hawk-tuah that’s enunciated with the “cht”.

Spanish speakers volition besides find that Google’s NotebookLM struggles with the Latin language. My exertion shared his personalized podcast with me, and I cringe whenever they effort to place a opus by Bad Bunny. Don’t get maine started connected the butchered pronunciation of “ray-gay-ton,” which is not however reggaeton is said retired loud. I would reason that uttering the connection with the due intonation is the genre. The cringe origin is precocious with this one.

This leads maine to ask: Isn’t this thing AI should prime up on? The euphony is categorized nether the connection successful which it is presented. I ideate a bot could beryllium programmed to propulsion successful from that information and set accordingly. To the recognition of its developers, Google covered its bases by mentioning that its AI hosts occasionally mispronounce words. But it takes the magic retired of the AI erstwhile you recognize the bot is conscionable arsenic flawed astatine failing to signifier pronunciation arsenic the remainder of us.

Spotify’s Wrapped AI podcast with Google prowess is disposable for Free and Premium users successful the U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, and Sweden for a constricted time.